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While getting our shots isn't a lot of fun, it definitely beats what they

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had to do in the old days. [kid snorts smallbox scabs... ew] There's nothing cool about snorting smallpox scabs,

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that's a fact. Our modern techniques come to us partially from a man named Edward Jenner, [Jenner pictured]

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an English doctor born in 1749. Well Jenner put together two pieces of common

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knowledge: first that the principles behind

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inoculation were sound, although inoculation might sometimes kill you, and

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second, that English milkmaids were generally immune to smallpox. [Jenner theorizes] Hmm... well

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Jenner's big realization was about why dairy workers didn't get smallpox. [Milkmade throws milk on Jenner] Most

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dairy workers had at some point contracted cowpox, which was a mild

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virus that gave them a few scabs on their hands and then it just went away. [woman with cowpox is not amused]

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Well, this was one of the few times in history that having scabby hands was a

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good thing. [Jenner revels in scabby hands] Jenner realized that cowpox was related to smallpox, and it might

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give people immunity to its nastier cousin... You know, that cousin who sleeps [gross smallpox cousin camps out]

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on the couch eats all the food all day and, well, then erupts into pustules and

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tries to, you know, kill somebody. Well, in 1796, Jenner conducted an incredibly

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unsafe experiment to prove his theory. He infected a young boy with cow pox from a [boy gets shot]

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milkmaid, then Jenner deliberately gave the same young boy smallpox Wow [Jenner gives boy smallpox]

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Wow, and we thought sharing a straw at the movie theater was unhealthy. But still,

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Jenner's sketchy experiment worked. The boy did not get smallpox, and he also did [boy doesn't get smallpox]

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not die a slow and painful death through inoculation. Awesome... kind of. Well, it took

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another 20 years before the world was aware of the new vaccine, but soon [vaccine normalized]

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governments were experimenting with mandatory vaccination. The days of

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smallpox were numbered. In fact the World Health Organization declared smallpox

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eradicated in 1977. That's a big team win for no team human. Over the next century, [smallpox dies]

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the epic battle between man and microbe continued with heavy losses on both

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sides. [video game] In 1928, penicillin, the first effective

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antibiotic was discovered. This seemed like a miracle cure for everything [penicillin destroys infections]

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from syphilis to eye infections. Well, the public was pretty convinced that modern

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medicine was on the brink of ending sickness forever. [sickness flies overhead] Not to give away the

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ending, but humans still get sick... like, all the time. Just when things were [sick humans fall]

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looking good, a new disease called polio appeared on the horizon. [polio appears] It was like in

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video games when we think we've killed the boss and he comes back meaner and

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uglier than before. [polio is hard to defeat] Well, polio is a virus that can get into

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our spines or brains and caused partial or complete paralysis. For the first half of [paralyzed people]

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the 20th century, it was the American public's greatest fear. If we were

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Superman, polio was our scary contagious kryptonite. Well, 1952 the U.S. had its [Superman falls]

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worst outbreak of polio ever. It left over 21,000 people disabled and killed [polio strikes]

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another 3,000. Worst of all, most of the victims were kids. A great race began to [race begins]

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find the cure for polio, fueled by public fears and fundraising.

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Well, Jonas Salk, a young medical researcher from New York City, was the

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winner of the Great Race. Wow did Salk do it? [Salk wins race]

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Well, first, he discovered a way to grow the polio virus in tissue culture from

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a monkey. [Salk experiments with polio] He then killed the virus before injecting it into a patient's

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bloodstream. [vaccine tested] Well, after a massive trial involving 1.8 million children, Salk's

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vaccine was proven effective. In 1955, the vaccine went to the market, in 1961 there

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were less than 200 cases of polio reported. [people are happy] And that's how doing medical

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experiments on children saved the day... [Salk helps children] Yeah, there's more than a little moral

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ambiguity with that.

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